Wednesday, 12 December 2012

My Two Friends

I am not dead. I am dying as I am living. I am old
and shabby like a living scarecrow. I go unnoticed by the passersby. I have two
friends – my wooden stick and my shadow.

With my wooden stick I have crossed many lands.
Whose are those lands? I don’t know. It’s the warmth of the earth that I feel
unlike the invisible boundaries and so I walk ahead.

I work few hours few days and earn enough to
continue. I have a dream I always dream but i can’t remember it when I wake up.
This is because of the running crowd I see every time I wake up. I like
standing in rows, long ones, standing and waiting with my wooden stick, weird
it may sound but I get time to waste.

I am poor, I am uneducated. I always stop to see a
leaf fall and a butterfly fly. I can’t understand right and wrong. Once when I
was in a city, a man left his dog at me. I ran while my wooden stick scared the
dog away. I left the place swearing never to return in the dogs’ land.

I always accept and I never expect. I have heard of
the government, it makes me laugh. I don’t know much about the laws but I am
fearful to break one. Is there a law about a wooden stick? Someone said that
the government is slow still I pray not to get caught. This is how I live.

You must have seen me. Some say I am the real India
and some call me the common man. I own nothing. I feel free in this land though
I know I am not. Heard a priest once saying something about Karma and
reincarnation, I hope I die to become me in the next life. I feel comfortable
the way I am. Change is strange for me.

My second friend, my shadow, never leaves me alone.
I am alive, I am a common man and you must have seen me.